University of Michigan snowflakes in the news

  University of Michigan Drops First-Semester Grades to ‘Curb Mental Health Crisis’

A pilot program aims to ease pressure on freshmen and help them adjust to demands of college

The University of Michigan will drop grades for first-semester freshmen next year in an effort to “curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals,” according to the school. ... 

The slavish respect for the consensus estimates for inflation and everything else vs. the actual levels viewed historically is as nutty as anything promoted in partisan politics

Consumer sentiment slides to second-lowest on record as inflation expectations jump after tariffs

... Recent inflation data has not shown a tariff bump, as both the consumer price index and producer price index for April came in below consensus estimates. ...

Who gives a damn about whether the consensus estimates got it right or not? What matters is what the damn rates are! 

And the rates are much higher when compared with the immediate pre-pandemic rates.

Would those have come down in recent months without the spectre of a Trump tariff regime looming in the wings?

Well we'll never know, now will we?

It's all so infuriatingly stupid.

Meanwhile consumer sentiment and surveys of same don't hold much water with me.

I conclude only one thing from them: that our tolerance for inflation has weakened dramatically. We were a much hardier people in the past, and now we are soft and melt like snowflakes at the slightest hint of bad news.

In November 1974 cpi inflation peaked at 12.2% year over year. The then Michigan survey of consumer sentiment plunged to 57.6 by February 1975.

But in April 2025 cpi inflation is only 2.3% year over year, and the Michigan survey has dropped to 50.8 from 52.2 in April.

It's comic.

In January 2021 just 47.4% of the civilian population had full-time jobs, compared with 2020's average of 47.3%

Biden reportedly said in response to the employment situation summary today:

"At that rate it's going to take ten years to get back to full employment. That's not hyperbole that's a fact."

The fact is employment has never recovered to pre-Great Recession levels, and Biden is as little likely to fix that as were Obama and Trump.

The Reagan era tax reforms hollowed out the labor economy. 

Before Reagan, high marginal tax rates on ordinary income steered that income into capital investment, gains from which received preferential tax treatment if held long enough. The investment grew the economy, providing good jobs for Americans and tax revenues for government at all levels. The arrangement distrusted rich people to do the right thing with their money, but rewarded them if they did.

Reagan libertarianism changed all that.

We were sold the idea that lower taxes on high ordinary incomes would still result in capital investment because we could trust people to do the right thing with their own money.

Guess what? Libertarian trust of human nature turned out to be as false as liberal trust of human nature. 

Under the influence of libertarian free trade dogma and growing globalization, that investment went abroad where there was far cheaper labor, lower taxes and less regulation. Profits soared for the few, bringing the number of billionaires from less than fifty in the 1980s to nearly 800 today. Meanwhile the good jobs gradually disappeared and income inequality soared.

Ordinary people today cannot afford cars, educations, health care, and houses as a result.

Add in cheap labor competition from immigration at a clip of 1 million a year and you can understand how Trump was so popular, however incompetent and narcissistic he was.

Trump may be gone, but the people remain screwed by these problems and by the time serving politicians and 2.8 million federal bureaucrats working for pensions who stand in the way.

Returning to the status quo ante might fix it, but it would take a generation to start feeling it. And who among us has the vision and the cojones to pull it off?

Certainly not the women and snowflakes who cry crocodile tears of fear on the House floor. Certainly not the sailors on board the Chafee who are in a panic because the cooks are infected with COVID.

The country is rotting from the inside out. All it will take to bring it down is . . . a series of unfortunate events.

The snowflakes follow their leader: Showing two signifies extra loyalty

Doubleplusgood.

Richard Spencer's a snowflake now, despite no nuclear winter from WWIII

Snowflake presidency: China threatens Hong Kong, Trump delays threatened tariffs until December minutes later

The Fredos of the world unite

If Chris Cuomo were a Michael and not a Fredo, he would have punched that guy right in the kisser just like Buzz Aldrin punched that guy who called him a coward, a liar and a thief. But he didn't. He backed down, just like the guy hurling the insult backed down. This is snowflake America.

Jessica Valenti: The snowflake/safe-space phenomenon is all the fault of feminism

And darn it, it just hasn't spread far enough.

The tantrum against intractable human nature continues.

Here:

One of feminism’s biggest successes was creating an alternative culture for girls and women seeking respite from mainstream constraints. Girls worried about unrealistic beauty standards, for example, can turn to the body positivity movement. Those of us who find traditional media’s treatment of women unappealing can read feminist blogs and magazines; female college students who have critical questions about how gender shapes their lives can take women’s studies classes.

From social media campaigns to after-school equality clubs, feminism has birthed dozens of online and real-life spaces where girls can find alternatives to the sexist status quo.

But boys and young men who are struggling have no equivalent culture.

Australian snowflakes in Afghanistan see a Nazi flag, fear PTSD or something

"Additionally, steps were taken to reinforce education and training for all personnel who witnessed the flag." 

Obviously it was a false flag operation. The Aussies were just trying to have a little fun and convince the Taliban they were friendlies.

It turns out Jeff Flake, easily melted by Donald Trump, really was born in Snowflake, Arizona

The Rod Dreher snowflakes at The American Conservative are horrified by Trump's threat to appoint a special prosecutor

Here:

Baron Harkonnen says:

October 9, 2016 at 11:57 pm

By the way – am I the only one freaked out at the fact that one candidate threatened to jail the other if he wins? What are we in Zimbabwe? Yet another thing nobody cares about. It’s all normal now. It’s unthinkable. Trump is openly threatening to weaponize federal government agencies against political opponents. Disqualifying reason #812. B-b-b-b-b-ut Clin-ton!!!

As if the federal government hasn't been weaponized against Republicans and conservatives throughout the Obama administration to a degree never before seen or imagined.